It was only when I attended the funeral of my colleague Rodney Milnes, who died a year ago this Sunday, that I learnt about his last years. After retirement he had swapped reviewing noisy operas in noisy cities for the polar opposite: idyllic tranquillity in a Gloucestershire village.

That, however, wasn’t the end of his attacks on institutions he felt were failing the public. A lifelong devotee of public transport, he apparently kept a fierce watch on buses serving local villages — castigating operators that disregarded their own timetables and local authorities that let routes disappear.

Perhaps it’s because of Rodney’s trenchant pen that Gloucestershire county council cut its spending on bus services by “only” 12 per cent last year — compared with the 100 per…